Nick Barlow's blog

Assuming the clock on my website’s server is right, then as this post goes live, polling will have started in the General Election. And on this day of all days, I’d like to appeal to activists of all parties to think back over the lessons learned during this campaign and come together as one to unite behind the Campaign for Humane Letterboxes.

Right, that’s the non-partisan bit out of the way. You might have guessed by now that the nature of election day means this won’t be like the other election diary entries I’ve made over the past month. As I’m unlikely to get a chance to sit at the computer and write something until Friday, I’ll tell you now what my election day consists of – first, sitting at polling stations taking numbers, then rushing round delivering leaflets before an afternoon and evening reminding people to go and vote. That’s followed by a mass rush to Charter Hall at 10pm for the count, and then a few hours of watching pieces of paper until it’s time for the result. If it wasn’t for adrenaline, caffeine and whatever else you might choose to keep yourself alert, election days would feature a lot less activity.

One thing that people often ask me is why we sit at polling stations collection voter’s elector numbers. It’s not for any nefarious purposes – simply, every party will have a list of the people they expect to vote for them (in the old days it was on multiple sheets of paper spread out in a large room, now it’s all kept on computer and printed off as needed). Every so often, the numbers collected at each polling station are taken to the local base (known as the committee room) and entered into the system. So, when we look at the data later in the day, we can see which of our supporters haven’t voted yet and go out to remind them to do it, with increasing urgency as 10pm gets closer. By giving the person at the polling station your number, you’re making sure that you won’t be disturbed on polling day – we make no assumption that because you’ve given us your number you’re going to vote for us.

You have a choice today when you go to vote. It’s a simple one: do you choose hope or fear? Do you vote because you’re scared of what the Daily Mail predicts, scared of all those nasty foreign people, scared of changing things that people say have worked for them for so long, scared of your neighbours, scared of those young people with nothing to do, scared of everything somehow going wrong unless the media’s designated strong government in waiting is allowed absolute power to tell you they’re dealing with all these problems while spending your money on finding new ways to terrify you? Or do you choose something else?

Do you hope for a better future, for a country where every vote counts, where the Government works for you, where the world’s just full of other people, not nasty scary monsters who want to destroy our way of life? Do you hope that this country could be run from the bottom up, not the top down, where taxes aren’t keeping the poor down, where you can get a decent education without plunging into thousands of pounds of debt, where you get to say what your hospital should be prioritising, not someone setting targets in London?

The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns and and close yourself off, the eyes of love instead, see all of us as one.

However you vote today, do it hopefully. They can only scare you if you let them.

This weblog is purely a personal site and unless explicity stated otherwise any opinions stated are purely personal and do not represent those of Colchester Liberal Democrats, Castle Ward Liberal Democrats or Colchester Borough Council.